Memphis Tennessee Bankruptcy Blog

Chapter 13 bankruptcy could be a powerful tool to restructure and limit the long-term impact of your debts. It could, in many cases, reduce financial risks, namely by limiting your creditors' rights to repossess the property you have offered them as collateral. Even though most Tennessee Chapter 13 bankruptcies proceed without incident, some debtors encounter problems keeping up with payments.

There are a number of reasons you might find yourself struggling to make your Chapter 13 installment deadlines. Some would be due to factors outside of your control, while others you could easily avoid — this article looks briefly at one example of each. Regardless of the cause of your missed payment, the consequence would likely be that your creditors would attempt to dismiss your bankruptcy case.

If you are a Tennessee resident facing overwhelming debt, you probably feel like you are being harassed to death by constant phone calls from all your creditors insisting that you pay their debts immediately. However, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act forbids your third-party creditors from harassing you.

Be aware that third-party creditors are not those to whom you directly owe money. Instead they are the companies, generally debt collection agencies, that bought your debts from your respective creditors when you fell behind in your payments or stopped paying those creditors entirely.

At Jimmy E. McElroy & Associates, we are proud of the work we do — and we like to think of it as more than just helping people file for bankruptcy. Just like our clients, we are members of the community we serve. Our primary goal is to help our Tennessee neighbors who might have overextended their finances to get back on their feet and back to pursuing their dreams. 

Many of our clients come into our offices for the first time with the idea that they are taking a last-resort option. While we realize that bankruptcy is nobody's first choice, we also know that it is nothing for you to feel bad about. In fact, if you were to have financial trouble and qualify for chapter 7 or chapter 13, we would probably recommend that you take the opportunity to have a small celebration.

One option you might have to stop electricity, gas and water companies from discontinuing your service is to file for bankruptcy. This could give you a type of protection that is similar in concept to the automatic stay: the part of bankruptcy that could have the power to stop creditors from harassing you.

While automatic stays are related, utilities are not subject to the same rules as general lenders. The laws that govern your relationship with your utility company are contained in a different section of the bankruptcy code. Once you understand the difference, it is often easier to form a strategy that lets you keep the lights on.